My wife likes to let people know that I “hate children”. When I argue that I don’t “hate” them (it’s such a strong word), this Baby Whisperer who I’ve married tries to reassure me that it’s fine and that I should just own it. It’s especially pleasant when she volunteers this information to strangers with children, who are left to secretly wonder if I’m the kind of monster who also hates puppies, cupcakes, rainbows and everything else that is good in this world.

Fortunately for me, N kept her mouth shut when we met an Australian couple with two young kids at the Phong Nha Farmstay. After a couple of exciting forays into the Vietnamese bush (hehe) with this family, we decided to join them on a full-day tour to see two caves in the Phong Nha National Park and although the cost of the tour was pretty steep for us ($100/person; we’re in Vietnam, people!), we decided that spending the day with this family would be more fun than being transported around with a bunch of strangers.

Our partners in crime with their cool helmets.

We got up at 6:45am and we were off on our journey an hour later, hopping onto an old American Army jeep and an old Russian motorcycle with Craig (an Australian) and Hung (a Vietnamese local) as our guides. They pointed out wartime scars on the landscape as we headed into the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. During the war, there were no American soldiers on the ground in this part of Vietnam (most of the fighting took place in the south), but they bombed the shit out of it for years, killing civilians and resistance fighters alike. During the day, people hid from bombers in the caves and worked on transporting supplies and building roads and landing strips during the cover of night.

One of our vehicles, a Russian motorcycle with sidecar.

Heading to the national park.

The fields in this area still have bomb craters from the B-52 bombing runs during the war.

The whole area is still covered with land mines that the Americans dropped during the war. Our guide Hung had deep scars on his arms and face from playing with a land mine when he was a child growing up in this area. He survived, but his four friends weren’t so lucky. Just the day before, two young boys living a few minutes from our Farmstay were killed while trying to pry open a land mine they had found in the mountains. I immediately thought of Bosnia — still deeply scarred from its war over two decades ago — and the chilling skull and crossbones signs we saw there, the international symbol for land mines. You can’t just bounce back from war, and this was a reality I had the luxury of never having to experience firsthand like these people did, and still do.

I felt it during the four-hour train ride to Dong Hoi. The subtle but unmistakeable rumbling of oncoming gastrointestinal distress. Remembering the 10-day involuntary cleansing ordeal I went through in Saigon and Dalat, I pleaded with my body and then tried not to think about it. After all, we were heading to the countryside to explore caves and harass cows and ain’t nobody got time for that. It had also only been about two weeks since the end of the first bout, and I had already lost at least 3kgs since I started traveling. I was withering away into a stick insect (plenty in this area). Completely ignoring my pleas, it started right after dinner that night and continued throughout the next four days we spent in Phong Nha, an otherwise relaxing country village.

No, that isn’t me taking a dump in the fields.

Coming home from the fields in the late afternoon.

We were staying at the Phong Nha Farmstay, which I expected to be a glorified mud hut in the middle of rice paddies (lowered expectations!) but it ended up being pretty nice and comfortable, complete with a small pool. Now I wouldn’t call this place a Farmstay. It’s more like a hostel or hotel, in the middle of rice paddies and farmers’ homes. I didn’t eat much that week but I also didn’t miss out on much judging from the taste of the food.

The Phong Nha “Farmstay”.

The view from the entrance of the hotel.

What kept me from just laying in our room like a useless lump on a log was an adventurous Australian family we met who was also staying at the Farmstay. It was their idea to rent mopeds to explore the countryside, and N somehow agreed to rent one of her own (I wasn’t there to stop her during the rental transaction) even though she had never ridden one in her life. Genius.

The Adventurous Aussies.

It all worked out in the end one afternoon, when Nigel (the father) kindly offered to drive the two of us on the back of one moped while Pip (the mother) and the kids rode on the other one. Nigel somehow maneuvered the cumbersome scooter around potholes, rocks, hay, rice drying in the sun and cow patties on the windy dirt roads towards the Chicken Lady, who is rumored to have the best chicken in the village. We got lost thanks to the crappy map the hotel gave us to decipher, but we got back on track once a friendly local pointed us in the right direction. So friendly that she got full cuddle time with my wife before we took off again.